Vietnam Protest

Is There Really Religious Liberty in Communist Vietnam?

by Mark Tooley

The Communist government of Vietnam continues to restrict religious activity.
But a government-organized group of Vietnamese church leaders recently visited
the United States to deny this reality, with help from US church groups.

“The government is not interfering into religious affairs,” insisted
Le Quang Vinh, chairman of the National Committee for Religious Affairs. His
delegation was hosted in New York and Washington, D.C., by Church World Service
(the relief arm of the National Council of Churches) and by the United Methodist
Board of Church and Society.

Specifically, Vinh’s delegation wanted to denounce the Vietnam Human Rights
Act passed by the House of Representatives last year by a vote of 410 to 1.
The bill would link non-humanitarian aid to Vietnam with improvements in the
country’s human rights record. It authorizes assistance to democratic
forces in Vietnam, and it provides additional funding of Radio Free Asia to
overcome jamming efforts by the Hanoi government.

As Vinh explained in an interview with The People’s Daily Army
newspaper, the bill “contains total distortions” and is potentially
an “obstacle to the development of relations between the two countries.”
The Communist delegation wanted an opportunity to “present the truth to
their critics in Washington,” according to Vinh, and “prevent adoption”
of the bill by the US Senate.

Rumors of Freedom

Mainline church leaders in the United States were persuaded. “One of
the problems is that outsiders continue to stir up problems in Vietnam and continue
to create tensions [between] the religious communities and the government,”
suggested United Methodist clergyman Lonnie Turnipseed, a former Church World
Service executive. “There is clearly freedom of religion in Vietnam.”

John McCullough, a United Methodist clergyman who heads Church World Service,
seemed equally supportive of Vinh’s mission. He lauded the Vietnamese
government’s “sense of compassion for its people” and its
cooperation with the religious community in Vietnam.

In his interview with the Vietnamese army newspaper, which can be found on the
Vietnamese Communist Party website, Vinh praised the United Methodist Board
of Church and Society for arranging the “agenda” of his delegation’s
visit. Vinh incorrectly noted that United Methodism has 25 million members in
the United States and 60 million worldwide. (Actually there are 8.3 million
in the United States and 11 million worldwide.)

Vinh’s delegation included three Protestant clergy, four Buddhist representatives,
and Catholic Bishop Dinh Chau Tran of the Dominican Order. These clergy “rejected
categorically the distortions and slanderous information against Vietnam,”
Vinh declared. And they “demanded” that their US peers join them
in preventing passage of the House resolution.

The Vietnamese government claims that there are 70,000 Protestants and 6 million
Catholics in their country. More independent sources, such as the World Evangelical
Alliance, claim 1.1 million Protestants and 7 million Catholics, meaning that
just under 9 percent of Vietnam’s 80 million people are Christian.

Facts of Repression

There is a consensus among US government agencies and independent human rights
groups that Vietnam is lacking in religious freedom.

According to Amnesty International, there is “continuing repression of
non-official religious groups in Viet Nam . . . in flagrant contradiction
to the Vietnamese government’s assertion of freedom of religion.”
Specifically, Amnesty cited the arrest and detention of members of the Hoa Hao
Buddhist Church for the “peaceful expression of their religious beliefs.”

Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom reports that the Vietnamese
government continues its policy of “brutally suppressing Christianity
among the country’s tribal populations.” One example it cites is
the August 2002 death of the Hmong Christian Mua Bua Senh, who was beaten to
death by security police for refusing to deny his faith. Over the last two years
Freedom House has released translated Vietnamese government documents detailing
“Official Plan 184,” which is a government attempt to eradicate
Christianity among tribal minorities. The campaign included a pledge form that
Christians were to sign when they renounced Christianity.

According to the US State Department report on religious liberty, the Vietnamese
government “restricts significantly those organized activities of religious
groups that it declared to be at variance with state laws and policies.”
Although religious practice continues to grow, “government restrictions
on the clergy of most religious groups remained in place, and religious groups
faced difficulties in training and ordaining clergy, publishing religious materials,
and conducting educational and humanitarian activities.” Authorities imprisoned
persons for practicing religion “illegally,” for which jail terms
of up to three years are possible.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Vietnamese government has continued its
attempts to suppress the growth of Protestant Evangelical churches that have
gained converts among Vietnam’s ethnic minorities. Catholics, too, have
not been immune from “state meddling,” with the government continuing
to restrict the number of parishes, to screen candidates for the priesthood
and for appointment as bishops, and to reject requests for a papal visit.

None of this was openly acknowledged by Vinh’s delegation or by his US
church hosts. Vinh, in pointing to religious freedom in Vietnam, claimed that
the government’s Religious Publishing House produced 400 book titles in
two years. He asked if “any other regime in the world could manage to
publish such a number of book titles within two years.”

That non-totalitarian governments allow religious organizations to produce
their own publications, rather than having the government do it, was a point
that did not occur to Vinh. He also said it was incorrect to say that there
were “a lot” of arrests of religious believers. There were “several,”
he admitted, but they were involved in “anti-state activities.”
Very reassuring.

“Vietnam Protest” first appeared in the March 2003 issue of Touchstone. If you enjoyed this article, you'll find more of the same in every issue.

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